But just in case you’re still not sold that the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule ought to be repealed before it takes effect Jan. 1, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas provides another reason (ERCOT released this information Friday — the same day Obama announced his reversal of the ozone regs):

Rolling blackouts will be much more likely in Texas next summer should new Environmental Protection Agency rules go into effect on Jan. 1 as planned, according to a report released Thursday by the state’s main electric grid manager.

The rules, which industry says caught it by surprise when they were unveiled in July, could lead to the shuttering of as much as 1,400 megawatts of coal-fired power plants capacity in Texas during the summer and up to 6,000 megawatts during other times of the year, according to the study by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

ERCOT has declared power emergencies several times this summer as record demand met unplanned power plant outages. Plant operators say the long, hot summer has meant more wear-and-tear due to longer operating hours for power plants.

Predictably, the EPA dismissed the ERCOT study, saying the state of Texas could find a way to meet the requirements of the new rule “without threatening electricity reliability or the continued operation of coal-burning units.” But agency representatives didn’t bother to substantiate that claim.

It’s not as though coal companies don’t want to do their part to help the environment. Consider this statement from Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity: “The EPA is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause. America’s coal-fueled electric industry has been doing its part for the environment and the economy, but our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, EPA doesn’t seem to care.”

In other words, energy companies would appreciate at the very least a more sensible, economically sensitive timeline. No doubt the president senses this. Politically speaking, the president has to show he’s serious about jobs and one way to do that is to abandon the ideologically-driven regulations that threaten whatever anemic recovery the nation has experienced. But he probably won’t stay on the anti-regulation bandwagon for long, as that might cost him among one of his own constituencies. Kevin Book and Chase Hutto, principals in the energy policy consulting firm Clearview Energy Partners, probably predicted accurately when they wrote: “For a president pinned between a green base and an anemic recovery, the best political outcome may be for the White House to stand behind EPA rules as either Congress or the Courts intervenes to delay them.”

Send tents, and all the enviro whackos to Texas next Summer. Free camping, no electricity for 4 months. June to October. They’ll be begging by the end of the first week, for electricity, and air conditioning.

Seriously, if he allows regs to pass that will cause some of our power plants to shut down here…and a bunch of people freeze in the winter and burn up in the summer, right before the election…a fool and the people’s White House are soon parted.

Predictably, the EPA dismissed the ERCOT study, saying the state of Texas could find a way to meet the requirements of the new rule “without threatening electricity reliability or the continued operation of coal-burning units.”

So say “the experts” who have never generated a volt of electricity, ran a company for profit, or had to meet a payroll.

Predictably, the EPA dismissed the ERCOT study, saying the state of Texas could find a way to meet the requirements of the new rule “without threatening electricity reliability or the continued operation of coal-burning units.” But agency representatives didn’t bother to substantiate that claim.

Typical big government attitude. As C.S. Lewis said, “they make geldings only to command them to be fruitful and multiply.”

Rolling blackouts will be much more likely in Texas next summer should new Environmental Protection Agency rules go into effect on Jan. 1 as planned, according to a report released Thursday by the state’s main electric grid manager

Don’t worry too much about rolling blackouts. There’s another problem looming that few understand. The more plants we retire without adequate replacement the less reserve we have. That just puts us closer to a massive cascading blackout that will take out large areas. This will happen at the worst possible time, when the load is at it’s peak, either cold winter or hot summer. It’s coming.

Google, Bing, Yahoo, or ever how you search, what is coming down the pike concerning electricity production and what the new and improved Ojesus EPA findings are going to do to your electric bill over the next five years.

“August’s average daytime high for Houston is typically 93.5 degrees. The city exceeded that value every day this month except for this past Monday (8/29) and Tuesday (8/30), when scattered showers kept a lid on temperatures.”

Heat index was a real bitch. And the ducks that live in my subdivision are running out of lake water in which to quack and frolic.

What are they going to do? Bring in troops to seize the operating systems of these power plants? Not going to happen.

darwin-t on September 6, 2011 at 8:24 PM

Would not surprise me if the 0 did try!

marinetbryant on September 6, 2011 at 8:30 PM

Nor me. Since the end of 2008 I’ve seen a lot of things happen that I never thought I would see in this country. Every time I pass a derelict car dealership, I curse Obama’s name under my breath.

I believe there is nothing he wouldn’t try. Look for all kinds of unprecedented dirty tricks in the runup to the next election (if we have one). I’ve signed up to be a poll worker, so I can do my bit to help prevent shenanigans, but of course I can only work one polling place, and fortunately for me, my neighborhood is probably not high on the list of SEIU targets.

What possible good would that do? Do you think “The troops” would be able to operate the plants or even understand what was happening? The only result of “The troops” taking control would be widespread blackouts happening sooner and lasting longer.

What possible good would that do? Do you think “The troops” would be able to operate the plants or even understand what was happening? The only result of “The troops” taking control would be widespread blackouts happening sooner and lasting longer.

Oldnuke on September 6, 2011 at 8:42 PM

Of course they couldn’t, but that’s not the point. The point with little Bammie and the progs is the government takeover, not whether it’s efficient or workable. Socialism is never efficient.

Obama will blame the Texas blackouts his regulations cause next year on Perry and the MSM will let the claim go unchallenged; just as he has blamed the failure to ratify free trade treaties that the Administration has not sent for ratification on the Republicans who do not even control the Senate, cannot vote on the measures until they are presented and would vote for them if they could (likewise the MSM does not challenge this calumny either).

Best part is that if this comes to pass a lot of folks will be buying portable gasoline or diesel generators, thereby creating far more pollution than the regs were preventing.

I should also add that the anger about the power outages in Connecticut thanks to Irene wasn’t so much about the time it took to get some areas back up (over a week for just a tropical storm, what happens if we get a Cat 1 coming through the SouthEast corner of the state?!?) but that CL&P obviously felt that Litchfield county was far more important than the east half of the state, and by their own admission they had most towns over in the NW down to 10% or less outages while most of the east half was still nearly 100% to 100%. They also couldn’t be bothered to let local public works crews clear downed trees if there were wires, so a lot of dead-end roads were blocked for days. Thankfully no one (that I have heard of) had an emergency where the access issues caused loss of life, but that was just dumb luck.

The standards for impeachment are not very difficult, nor are the vote requirements. I invite everyone to study the details and encourage their representatives in both houses to get off their asses and DO something about this marxist cretin in the White House.

So assuming nothing changes, will the Texas utilities actually allow life-threatening blackouts, to occur, or will they uphold their professional standards and act in the best interests of their customers?

This may be old news, but I’m surprised that Tina didn’t mention the EPA rules from April 2010 which mandate use of “Best Available Control Technology” to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants emitting more than 250,000 tons/year of CO2, which could be emitted by natural gas with a heating value of about 110 megawatts (MW), when most power plants produce AT LEAST 250 MW.

There is no technology commercially “available” to absorb such enormous quantities (about 130 cubic feet per SECOND at standard conditions) of harmless CO2 from stack gas, so that power companies considering building a new plant simply cancel their plans, not wanting to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on experimental technology which may be unnecessary if a future President rescinds the rule (which has never been made law by Congress).

For now, this “rule” has only prevented power companies from expanding production, but it’s a ticking “time bomb”, since permits for existing power plants will need to be reviewed every 5 years, and more and more plants will be shut down (about half of them AFTER the 2012 election) because CO2 “control technology” would be prohibitive.

As an example, a power company in West Virginia was considering installing new technology to remove 22% of its CO2 emissions, at a capital cost of $760 million (half subsidized by DOE), but eventually backed out of the deal. If this cost is scaled to the entire plant’s emissions, the capital cost would be about $3.5 billion, not to mention the energy cost of compressing the CO2 and the required refrigeration system.

If this “rule” is applied to all the nation’s power plants over the next five years, the capital and energy costs could easily reach into the TRILLIONS, which could either force massive shutdowns and blackouts, or electric bill increases of thousands of dollars per customer, or both.

All this in order to reduce emissions of a harmless gas that green plants need to feed the world, which MIGHT increase the air temperature by a fraction of a degree.